Day 7 and 8 in the mountains of Mexico - We take the bus to Talpa de Allende - part 1

The beach and the ocean in Puerto Vallarta are wonderful but we wanted to see other parts of Mexico while we're here so we decided to take a local bus to a quiet mountain town. We could have paid about $80 each to go on a guided tour van with 6 other people but that's too much time in a vehicle for one day (about 3 1/2 hours there and 3 1/2 hours back and only an hour in Talpa and a short wine tasting in Mascota). For about $19 USD round trip per person we took the Autotransporte Medina (ATM) bus to Talpa de Allende and we absolutely splurged at the hotel and got the king room (sleeps 5 kind of) for $50. We could have got a "Matrimonial" room (a double bed I think) for $30 but I wanted a big room. Total cost for transportation and lodging was $88 USD for the two of us.

I had done my research and looked up the website of ATM and was reassured to see the picture of the buses with information that they had reclining seats, climate control, free bottled water, etc. Don and I had ended up on the 2nd class bus from Playa del Carmen to Vallodolid by mistake a number of years ago and I knew I didn't want to make that mistake again (no bathroom, old bus with no A/C, stopped at every little town, etc.

We took a taxi to the ATM terminal for our 9 am bus:

 The terminal is just a lady at an outdoor desk, a large metal overhang, and two ATM buses.

The terminal.

 Ooh, look at our nice modern bus! But then this one left, with no one on it. Where is our bus?

This is our bus. No bathroom, no A/C, and the seats were okay but there weren't any foot rests or seat back pockets. This bus was at least 30 years old. I should have looked at the fine print. The one new bus that they have is only on certain routes. I couldn't even found out which routes since the woman at the desk didn't speak any English. And the trip is 4 hours, not 3 1/2 like it says on their deceptive website. Oh well, life is an adventure.

The route to Talpa de Allende is half the fun of the trip. Once you get out of Puerto Vallarte there is some fantastic scenery of the mountains and mountain passes. It is also kind of harrowing, those roads are narrow, there's no shoulder, and sometimes there are fallen rocks in the road. We don't have any pictures because the bus bounced around too much to take any through the window. 

The bus stopped at small towns along the route to drop off and pick up more passengers. Sometimes, there would be someone just waiting along the side of the road and the bus would pick them up and they would ride for a few miles and then get off again at some point further up the road. 

We stopped once at a Pemex gas station for a break: 

We arrived at our destination at 1 pm and went looking for our hotel (with the help of Google). It was just a 10 minute walk away.

 Lovely walk on the way to the hotel.

 A school.

We stayed at the Hotel Provedencia, located just two blocks from the main plaza and the basilica. The room was very pretty and clean and the shower was enormous, you could have fit five people in there easily, but the hot water tap in the bathroom didn't work. When I told the woman at the front desk she tried to tell me what needed to be done but my Spanish isn't that good and she spoke no English. So she came to our room and turned on the valve under the sink. Now we had water but it was cold. 

We would worry about that later, we wanted to go see the Basilica de Nuestra Senora  del Rosario de Talpa (Basilica of Our Lady of the Rosary of Talpa), a very famous place where pilgrims come to worship, some of them after walking for many miles. There are five different religious festivals a year and you don't want to try to get a room in town then at the last minute, the population of the town triples during those times (population of Talpa is approximately 15,000).

 The sun shining through these stained glass windows made beautiful colored patterns on the walls.

 The crypt.

Everywhere we went we saw little stores and fabricas (factories) making what are essentially fruit roll-ups (rollos).

Talpa is known for their guava and they make a lot of candies and fruit roll-ups from guava, mango, pineapple, etc. 

 Machine for stirring the mixture. Then it is spread with wooden paddles on plastic wrap that is laid out out on wood planks.

You can see some of the roll-ups on the counter, along with jars of mango, guava, and other whole fruit.

Talpa is a very pretty town and we spent a lot of hours just walking around and taking pictures. There are some tours you can take but since they are in Spanish only we opted not to take any. There is one to the petroglyphs we would have liked to go on, also one to the maple forest. Surprisingly, the region has the largest maple forest in North America, even bigger than the ones in Canada.

 Men were lowering a bell from the tower, presumably it needs mending or replacing.

We decided to go up hill, just to see what we could see: 

 .

 Here is a sign for the "Cristo del Rey monument" so up we went.

 Tiny church.

 A little more uphill and we are at the entrance to the monument. Why am I always going up steps? To see monuments, cathedrals, the view, because they're there.

Very peaceful. We were the only people there.

Since it was getting late and we had had a very light lunch on the bus we started looking for the Casa Grande restaurant. Good reviews and it is supposed to have a great view of Talpa. Luckily for us it was just a few blocks from the monument.

The Casa Grande is known for their steaks and their arrachera (hanger steak) was the best we have had anywhere. Don and I shared the steak and the baked potato. The potato was a revelation: perfectly baked and with a light gravy that was so, so tasty. We were also the only ones in the place, it is not tourist season in Talpa (if there is a tourist season outside of the religious festivals) and it was a Monday night. After a glorious meal of steak, potato, guacamole, and huge green salad, three glasses of wine, and one generous pour of Martell cognac (all for less than $40 USD with a 20% tip!) we asked the waiter to call us a taxi. It is only about a 15 minute walk back to our hotel but down steep roads and stairs and in the dark. The taxi was $2. The further you get from the huge tourist towns the cheaper things are. True all over the world.

A note on hotel rooms in Mexico - many times we have been in hotel rooms in Mexico where your bed is a mattress on a tile slab that has been built into the floor. This room was no exception except the mattress was on a concrete slab on top of the tile slab:

Extremely firm mattress! The beds and end tables cannot be moved, there is no rearranging furniture!
Buenos noches!